D&D 5E Mines of Phandelver - Need Help With a BBEG Brainstorm

[Benjamin Olson]

Whoah...a thread that wandered off-topic. That's unprecedented.

I'd better alert the news media.

It is not the tangent that is notable, a thread is hardly a thread here until it's had a major tangent or two, it is the gusto with which so many committed to the nonsequiter tangent without acknowledging what was actually being asked.

Some of us who actually read the OP's post found ourselves rereading it several times in search of some hint of a reason why the majority of commenters just went straight to talking about CRs and such as if that were in the question.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

Whoah...a thread that wandered off-topic. That's unprecedented.

I'd better alert the news media.

I would expect this to happen after a page or two, but in the first page and a tangent that is not even brought up in the OP?

I mean the OP doesn’t mention anything about combat, or difficulty, or how tough the NPC is. It isn’t a tangent so much as a fabrication.

 

[LordEntrails]

Some of us who actually read the OP's post found ourselves rereading it several times in search of some hint of a reason why the majority of commenters just went straight to talking about CRs and such as if that were in the question.

I mean the OP doesn’t mention anything about combat, or difficulty, or how tough the NPC is. It isn’t a tangent so much as a fabrication.

If all is you read is the thread titled, and you have run LMoP, then it's easy to jump in with a solution, to a question that was never asked.

That is what/why I thin the off topic posts happened so quickly. Part of the reason a thread title is so important.

 

[Seramus]

I would do it IN REVERSE. Gundren Rockseeker was once the Black Spider/Dread Pirate Roberts, but someone came in and pulled a Xanathar on him and took over his operation, legacy, and even his name!

It allows Gundren to be a justifiably weaker, uses the DPR themes you are interested in, and creates a moral problem in the end: do they let Gundren take back the mantle of Black Spider, and what will he do once he gets it back?

 

[robus]

Interesting, this response has absolutely nothing to do with the question the OP asked!

Yeah, I know, but the OP wanted a memorable finale it seems, so I wanted to warn them of a core issue with the BBEG as written.

 

[Bill Zebub]

That is what/why I thin the off topic posts happened so quickly. Part of the reason a thread title is so important.

@JMISBEST is really setting a new standard in thread titles.

 

[robus]

It is not the tangent that is notable, a thread is hardly a thread here until it's had a major tangent or two, it is the gusto with which so many committed to the nonsequiter tangent without acknowledging what was actually being asked.

Some of us who actually read the OP's post found ourselves rereading it several times in search of some hint of a reason why the majority of commenters just went straight to talking about CRs and such as if that were in the question.

For me it’s because this module gets so much praise, when I found it to have numerous issues, and the anticlimactic finale was the biggest. So I was trying to warn the OP of that eventuality.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

For me it’s because this module gets so much praise, when I found it to have numerous issues, and the anticlimactic finale was the biggest. So I was trying to warn the OP of that eventuality.

See to me what makes Lost Mines special is that so much creativity of first time DMs has been poured into making this rather sketchy and underdeveloped module their own. I think, in that vein, for most people the underdeveloped villain with the paper thin motives is a strength.

I think WotC's mistake, given that this is the "learn to DM" module was not putting in language explicitly telling new DMs that their version of the Black Spider is just a suggestion and that you should sub in whatever you want and it will make a nearly equal or greater amount of sense. Then maybe have some suggestions for what might make a more compelling end boss fight for different group compositions.

 

[dave2008]

Whoah...a thread that wandered off-topic. That's unprecedented.

I'd better alert the news media.

No, that is completely expected. It just happened so quick and the tangent didn't develop organically, it just appeared without any help from the OP

 

[dave2008]

You do know you can multi-quote and put all your quotes into a single reply right? Rather than bombing the thread with 5 posts basically stating the same thing over and over again? If you don't and would like to learn how, I can show you.

Yes, I've used the feature before. However, I didn't read the whole thread and then respond. I responded as I was going through it.